UNIT THREE. "Poetry is made of language; fiction is made of people": so goes the old--and accurate--saying. If we wish to write stories well, we have to learn how to create convincing, complex, and interesting characters. There are essentially two ways to create a character: diegetically, by telling the reader who and what the character is; and mimetically, by showing the characters' behaviours and letting us eavesdrop on his or her speeches or thoughts. Obviously, the second of these methods is likely to have more dramatic impact than the first; it is also more "realistic" and convincing in that it allows the reader to do the interpreting.
We are all naturally suspicious of second-hand accounts: we don't necessarily believe what we hear about people from others, preferring the "see for ourselves" and to "make up our own minds". I. A. The novelist E.M. Most realistic stories involve both round and flat characters. B. Static characters do not change during the course of the story. C. D. E. F. G. H. Literary Analysis: Using Elements of Literature.
Students are asked to write literary analysis essays because this type of assignment encourages you to think about how and why a poem, short story, novel, or play was written. To successfully analyze literature, you’ll need to remember that authors make specific choices for particular reasons. Your essay should point out the author’s choices and attempt to explain their significance. Another way to look at a literary analysis is to consider a piece of literature from your own perspective. Rather than thinking about the author’s intentions, you can develop an argument based on any single term (or combination of terms) listed below. You’ll just need to use the original text to defend and explain your argument to the reader. Allegory - narrative form in which the characters are representative of some larger humanistic trait (i.e. greed, vanity, or bravery) and attempt to convey some larger lesson or meaning to life.
Protagonist - The character the story revolves around. Characterization. History[edit] The term characterization was introduced in mid 15th century.[1] Aristotle promoted the primacy of plot over characters, that is a plot-driven narrative, arguing in his Poetics that tragedy "is a representation, not of men, but of action and life. "[2] This view was reversed in the 19th century, when the primacy of the character, that is a character-driven narrative, was affirmed first with the realist novel, and increasingly later with the influential development of psychology.[2] Direct vs. indirect[edit] There are two ways an author can convey information about a character: Direct or explicit characterization The author literally tells the audience what a character is like.
Indirect or implicit characterization The audience must infer for themselves what the character is like through the character’s thoughts, actions, speech (choice of words, way of talking), looks and interaction with other characters, including other characters’ reactions to that particular person. Character Development.
English 250 Fiction Unit: Characterization 1 — Character Development 250 • Fiction • Characterization 1 • Lit Analysis Character development A well-developed character is one that has been thoroughly characterised, with many traits shown in the narrative. The better the audience knows the character, the better the character development. Thorough characterisation makes characters well-rounded and complex. Character development is very important in character-driven literature, where stories focus not on events, but on individual personalities.
Direct vs. indirect characterisation There are two ways an author can convey information about a character: Direct or explicit characterisation: The author literally tells the audience what a character is like. Characterisation in Drama In performance an actor has less time to characterise and so can risk the character coming across as underdeveloped. [Adapted from ] Literary element. Literary elements[edit] References[edit] What is Character Development? I remember back when cameras had something inside them called film that you had to get developed. For those of you college-aged or younger, that’s where a technician would treat the film with some chemicals inside a mysterious darkened room, and an image would magically appear on the special paper. But if the process went awry, you could end up with an underdeveloped image that was dark or fuzzy, or one that was over-exposed and therefore too washed out to see clearly.
The key to getting a crisp clear photograph largely depended on how the technician developed the film. If we want readers to have a vibrant mental image of our characters, we have to spend some time in the dark room. GIVEAWAY: Tom is excited to give away a free copy of his novel to a random commenter. Guest column by Tom Pawlik, the highly imaginative, Christy Award-winning author of several novels, including the thriller,BECKON (2012, Tyndale House), as well as the novella “Recollection” from the 7 Hours anthology. 1.